On Friday the minority leader of the Rhode Island House, Robert Watson, was charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Watson recently came under fire when he “dismissed debate over the decriminalization of marijuana as not worthy of legislators’ time.” (His exact words, by the way, were, “I suppose if you’re a gay man from Guatemala who gambles and smokes pot, you probably think that we’re onto some good ideas here.”)
While I certainly wouldn’t call Watson an “anti-drug activist,” commentators are framing the scandal as yet another example of political hypocrisy. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of other examples of perceived political hypocrisy: a significant number of anti-gay political figures have turned out to be or have been suspected of being gay themselves, and lest you think this is a conservative phenomenon, I’m sure North Carolina Senator R.C. Soles isn’t the only anti-gun political activist to own and use a gun.
Are the anti-drug, drug-using politician, the anti-gay, gay politician, and the anti-gun, gun-owning politician symptoms of particular features of our political system? Manifestations of fear, self-hatred, or other psychological phenomena? Both?
I think this kind of political hypocrisy is, at least in part, a product of the party system. Republicans and Democrats are “supposed to” maintain a particular set of policy preferences. It’s nearly impossible to be elected to and retain a political office without identifying yourself with a party platform. Minor parties provide alternatives to the major-party platforms, but don’t provide an escape from platforms altogether. Sure, you can get away with disagreeing with your party on minor issues, but drugs, gay rights, and guns are high-profile issues that, for the most part, tend divide people along party lines.
But while I think the party system goes a long way toward explaining some of the perceived political hypocrisy, I don’t think it explains the anti-gay gay politician. It’s not just a matter of conforming to one political platform or another, and it’s not just about using drugs or owning a gun — it’s an extremely personal issue closely tied to an individual’s identity and sense of self. The closeted anti-gay politician is, I think, a truly sympathetic figure (although people certainly have the right to be outraged at the consequences of his anti-gay advocacy). I can’t imagine the difficulty of that kind of internal struggle and the potential for self-hatred that could go along with it. The political party with which he identifies doesn’t accept his lifestyle and, sometimes, neither does his god. Moreover, although homosexuality is becoming more and more publicly accepted, there are many states in which a gay politician of any stripe will have a difficult time getting elected — it’s not just a matter of party politics. Accordingly, I’m not sure it’s right to lump the anti-gay, gay politician in with the hypocritical anti-drug and anti-gun politicians.
And what of the anti-abortion activist who herself chooses an abortion? She raises a whole other set of difficult political and psychological questions….
I want to draw one distinction here — which is that I think the “anti-gun gun owner” is a different category from the rest, and a far more justifiable position. This is largely because being “anti-gun” can mean so many different things. There are those who would ban all classes of guns from ownership by all classes of people. It would be one thing for a person who supported criminalizing all gun ownership to himself own a gun. But a lot of people who are labeled as “anti-gun” really just support very strong regulation of access to guns — particular types of guns, who can get them, what safety measures are required, etc. The story about R.C. Soles doesn’t really say what his positions are, but I doubt they are as hypocritical as someone who argues for harsh penalties for drug offenders and then is caught carrying weight himself.
I guess this is part of my larger complaint that these accusations of hypocrisy take a lot of the nuance out of political positions. It’s not hypocritical to both say that you think assault rifles are unreasonably dangerous and should be prohibited and to own a shotgun for hunting purposes. But when the former earns you the generic label of “anti-gun,” we discourage politicians from drawing precise lines that address the root causes of problems like gun violence while still preserving as much freedom as possible.
Absolutely agree with you, Dave. I actually think each of these characters (including the anti-abortion abortion getter, about whom I think there is much that could be said) is pretty different — both in terms of motivations and in terms of the justifiability of their positions. I actually wouldn’t call Robert Watson a hypocrite either (based on the contents of these stories, at least): he just said that he though the legislature could be doing more important things than arguing about decriminalization. Both stories were hooks for some broader thoughts about the party system and self hatred, and some nuance definitely gets lost along the way. Though regardless of the defensibility of these two particular politicians’ views, truly hypocritical anti-gun gun owners and anti-drug drug users certainly exist.
IRV would help alleviate the problem of politicians feeling they must wear a generic one-size-fits-all personality/political stance in order to get elected. A long way off at the national level, but the push for alternative voting is gaining steam in more states…
Really interesting analysis. One distinction I’d add is between gay/drug-using/gun-owning politicians who merely sign on to a party platform that is anti-gay/drug/gun, and gay/drug-using/gun-owning politicians who loudly advocate for anti-gay/drug/gun legislation.
Plenty of politicians don’t agree 100% with their party platforms – hence the idea of the “big tent” political party. But, particularly in the case of anti-gay gay politicians, there seems to be a recurring pattern that some of the loudest voices on a particular issue are actually the biggest hypocrites. Our friend Representative Watson went out of his way to oppose the decriminalization of marijuana – he didn’t quietly stand with his party and vote against it. California state Senator Roy Ashburn organized and attended anti-gay marriage rallies before police arrested him for a DUI after leaving a gay club with a male companion in his car. See also former Representative Mark Foley and former Senator Larry Craig.
In the case of the gay/drug-using/gun-owning politician who signs on to a contradictory party platform, I think your depiction of the role of the party system is right on. The case of former RNC Chairman (and now openly gay) Ken Mehlman would be a good example of a gay politician who technically participated in anti-gay advocacy, but mostly sat on the sidelines.
However, for actively hypocritical politicians like Watson and Ashburn, I think there’s an important psychological element at play as well. As an amateur Freudian, my diagnosis would be a case of projection, in which a person unconsciously denies his own inner thoughts (often perceived as weaknesses or failings), and instead attributes them to the outside world. He attacks in others what he hates about himself, or overcompensates his opposition to such thoughts in order to hide his own fears.
Perhaps the party system exacerbates this tension for politicians like Watson and Ashburn – by forcing them to implicitly endorse positions contrary to their secret longings, they feel the need to speak more loudly against them.
I don’t think the “anti-gay” “gay” politician is necessarily hypocritical, though some certainly are.
I use scare quotes for both “anti-gay” and “gay” for a reason. I’m not quite sure what you mean by “anti-gay,” since that implies harsh sentiments such as hatred towards gay people, homophobia, beliefs that homosexual behavior should be criminalized and punished severely, or viewing gays as less-than-human. On the other hand, one could also be “anti-gay” in the sense that they believe homosexual behavior is morally incorrect or that the Constitution doesn’t mandate something like gay marriage. If “anti-gay” means the latter, then there are different implications for hypocrisy.
I also use “gay” in scare quotes because, as you point out, being gay is a matter of identity. And yet, many of these politicians might have a homosexual orientation or behave in homosexual ways, but still not identify themselves as “gay.” To identify them as such when they themselves don’t is quite presumptuous.
To my main point: a homosexually-oriented politician who opposes something like gay marriage, or morally condemns homosexuality, is not necessarily hypocritical. Assuming they are taking steps to overcome their own orientation, they are actually heroically (some might say self-destructively) consistent: they think that homosexual behavior is wrong from themselves as well as others; they don’t feel they should have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex as others don’t.
Ah, but then comes temptation: that idea which might be unfamiliar to the non-believer, but which Paul expresses in Romans 7:15 — “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” When one of these politicians slips up, and then is caught by the media, he’s put in the stocks. And maybe for good reason — he is a public figure after all. And maybe this makes him a hypocrite: he’s not practicing what he preaches, after all. But as one who slips into temptation more than I care to admit, it’s a hypocrisy with which, while I condemn it, I can certainly sympathize.
I think this conversation is linked to a broader issue: to what extent should we expect political leaders to also be moral leaders? At one extreme (which I will call the “moral view”), you could say that moral character is absolutely essential to being a leader, and that one should vote against an immoral leader even if his policy preferences align 100% with your own political views, and conversely should vote for a moral leader even if his policy preferences diverge from your own (I believe this phenomenon was commented upon during George W. Bush’s presidency — he was seen as having “character” and that got him some respect/support even from people who disagreed with him on certain policy questions). At the other extreme (which I will call the “amoral view”), you could say that morality is irrelevant, and that one should vote for whichever candidate will best effectuate the policies you believe in, regardless of their personal behavior. A somewhat less extreme view is that we should only care about morality/character insofar as it is related to a leader’s job performance, but not as it relates to “personal” issues (I recall this position being touted by defenders of Bill Clinton). Finally, there is what I would call the “hypocrisy-centered view”: we should care about a politician’s morals only insofar as he espouses a belief in those morals. This seems to be the version that this post assumes as baseline: we should care when politicians violate beliefs that they, themselves espouse. Note that the hypocrisy-centered view is not mutually exclusive of the other approaches, and also that there are many potential intermediate positions.
I see a potential danger in the hypocrisy-centered approach, in that it incentivizes* politicians NOT to take moral positions or espouse moral behavior. Some might respond, “who cares?” if they are of the amoral view. But for people of the moral view (or people who hold an intermediate position), this poses some problems. If we assume that nobody is perfect, and that everyone has some moral failings, then publically taking moral positions simultaneously makes one vulnerable to the charge of hypocrisy. And the only leader who is totally immune from any potential charge of hypocrisy is the leader who totally rejects all notions of morality.
Now obviously there are some stances that it will be “safe” to take. For example “thou shalt not murder” is one moral stance that most leaders seem to find it pretty easy to avoid violating. But there are others — “thou shalt not lie” or “thou shalt not use marijuana” — that many leaders have undoubtedly violated in the past. (This brings up a past vs. current dichotomy — Obama, Bush, and Clinton all admitted, explicitly or implicitly, to using drugs in the past, and it didn’t really seem to be much of an issue, yet I suspect if Obama used drugs today it would be a massive controversy).
The upshot of all of this is that if we think politicians should also be moral leaders, we might have to tolerate a certain amount of hypocrisy at some level or another. This is especially true in an age where it is very difficult to keep secrets (in a time when hypocrisy was more difficult to discover, moral leadership was probably much easier, compare, e.g., JFK with WJC). And even if you think politicians shouldn’t be moral leaders, you might agree that as a matter of fact in our current cultural and political environment they ARE moral leaders.
If this is the case, maybe we should think carefully about whether we want to have a “zero-tolerance policy” for hypocrisy. Such a policy may discourage people with high morals from running for office, and may discourage elected leaders from taking moral stances, thus degrading the moral state of our society. Or maybe such a policy would encourage moral leadership by weeding out the hypocrites, leaving only the “truly” moral leaders?
As to the anti-abortion abortion-getters, that doesn’t really surprise me, insofar as it’s always more difficult to stick to one’s beliefs when you are in a difficult situation. To use a less-loaded example, one might believe in speed limits, yet consistently violate them; one might believe stealing should be illegal, yet might steal out of necessity under desperate circumstances. I don’t think it’s necessarily inconsistent for someone to advocate for the illegality of something (be it speeding, stealing, abortion, drugs, R-rated movies) while acknowledging that one might do that thing in certain circumstances, even against one’s soberly-considered, honestly-held, untested moral beliefs. I would argue that (regardless of your policy position on the specific examples here) it may be a good thing as a general matter for society to set standards that will be difficult, at times, for some people to adhere to, because it makes society better as a whole.
There’s a lot more I could say but this is already a long and rambly comment so I’ll stop there.
*Yes, “incentivizes”.
A politician could certainly be gay and take positions that gay-rights people regard as “anti-gay.” If he is secretly sleeping with men, however, then there is an obvious hypocrisy. Similarly, someone could own a gun not covered under the Assault Weapons Ban and still support the Assault Weapons Ban, or not agree with D.C. v. Heller, etc. Most politicians who take positions that are hypocritical probably do so because of pressure within their party, perhaps some self-hatred. I do think, however, that their positions reflect their actual beliefs in many cases.
As for Mehlman, all I will say is that it is dishonest to suggest to GOP donors that you are going to support things they care about -like traditional marriage- while actually discouraging GOP pols from supporting measures (mainly at the state level) that do that. Apparently, Mehlman did not have a ton of success at discouraging Rove & co. from getting a marriage amendment on the ballot in 2004 in Ohio, for example, but he still misled GOP rank-and-file folks on this point.
Response Post: Anti-Drug Drug Users, Anti-Gay Gay People, and Anti-Gun Gun Owners: Hypocrisy and the Party System « wildewire
There was no word for any “sexual orientation” in my world when I grew up (thru HS) and it was better quite frankly. No, that doesn’t mean and never did mean exterminate all that is not what is now called heterosexual.
Gay means “Bad.” No one wants to be the hated and accused as such persons and concepts called gay are.
The outcome of puberty is called adulthood (with respect to sexuality). This is NOT to be considered a crime, nor are the biologically induced thoughts that naturally come with maturity. The real world and real people are analog, not digital, not these utterly concocted and unnecessarily intrusive terms, and thus groups of people (and nonpersons). It has only generated hatred and harm, though we now know there is indeed some biological/genetic based factor that influences sexual attraction based on gender. There is really is no such person that has not had at some point some sort of attraction to either sex in some fashion.
Sheeple can stop making the government their religion (see the IRS code with the word religion as a classification of “non-profit” which directly violates the 1st amendment). Delete the word and be free. No bona fide church actually would make any “profit” to be taxed.